What The Cool Girls Are Doing: Cutting Bangs in Their Hair?

California is the place to be if you have asthma like I do, as they’ve all but banned the smoking of cigarettes in or anywhere near where the general public gathers. My asthma is extremely well controlled, but the one thing that will trigger it like nothing else is an errant waft of cigarette smoke. Now that it’s out of my life almost everywhere I go, I’m amazed I managed to survive all those years at dance clubs that allowed indoor smoking.

But even though I’m crazy allergic to it, the smell of slightly smoky hair mixed with a whiff of last night’s perfume is still one of my very favorite scents on earth. Barring having a buddy who still lights up, the closest you can get to huffing this intoxicating combination is with a spritz of Etat Libre D’Orange’s Jasmin Et Cigarette eau de parfum. It’s a crazy complex mix of tobacco, apricot, amber and tonka bean that pretty epically nails the way a beautiful girl’s hair smells at the end of a successful night out -- part sickly sweet yet slightly ashy. It’s delectable.

C'est une lèvre et une cigarette! Because even though cigarette smoking is totally not cool, we all know it really is. (Thousands of movies and every episode of Mad Men ever can’t be wrong.) So now, instead of putting a cancer stick in your mouth, you can be one of the cool girls by wearing one in your hair. A sparkly cig-accented coiffure is exactly the thing to dress up an otherwise super simple outfit.

Even if your hair is too thick to be held in place by just a bobby pin, they still make a good finishing touch decoration to accent a ponytail, sock bun, or simple bang pin-up. In case a rhinestone cigarette isn’t your speed, ban.do also has a little pure poetry for your hair -- love, party, rad, cool, hooray, super fun yeah!! Add the poetry bobbies to the ciggy bobby and you're a walking beatnik poetry slam.

I'm all about bobby pins right now because I’m currently debating cutting bangs in my hair, so of course my very first thought is how I’ll have to pin them back when they get dirty. I’ve actually been pretty seriously considering just having my hairdresser make me a set of clip-in bangs instead of cutting them for real so I don’t have to deal with the upkeep.

Because while I love the way my hair looks with a little fringe around my face, I’ll never forget that just before the photo below was taken, I had to wash my bangs with hand soap in the ladies' room at Madison Square Garden and then style them with the wall hand dryer, lest I look like a total greasy mess for my then drummer boyfriend’s big arena debut.

I always thought the moral of that story was to think twice before you decide to cut bangs, but I just realized it’s actually this: Don’t ever date a drummer. Even though I love the way bangs look, I'm waffling on them ever so slightly because by hour twelve of every day they are always a gross, greasy, stringy mess in need of attention and intervention.

So I ask you this: How do I keep my bangs dry and fluffy but my forehead well moisturized? And what about when your hair gets windblown? I fear being chained to my folding hairbrush and pocket packet of dry shampoo. I think part of the answer is to cut them a little thicker and a little longer, (my Google history shows many, many recent searches for 'Kate Moss+bangs' and 'girl from Two Broke Girls+bangs') as the added weight and bulk seems like it would help avoid that bedraggled, stringy separation I suffered from previously.

Any bang-havers wanna share your coping tips with me? Because bobby pins, bathroom sink washing and dry shampoo is all I got -- and I'm totally heading for the chop.